Shyamaji Krishnavarma, founder of the India House organization in Highgate, began to produce and edit The Indian Sociologist in January 1905. The subtitle of The Indian Sociologist was 'an Organ of Freedom, of Political, Social and Religious Reform'. It carried on its masthead two quotes from Herbert Spencer: 'Everyman is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man', and 'Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative. Non-resistance hurts both altruism and egoism'.
Krishnavarma used the monthly journal to publicize his scholarship schemes and express his views on British and Indian politics. The inflammatory nature of some of Krishnavarma's articles brought The Indian Sociologist to the attention of the Government. Krishnavarma was disbarred and fled to Paris to avoid arrest. When Krishnavarma fled to Paris in 1907, the Indian Sociologist continued to be printed in London by Arthur Horsley and Guy Aldred. However, in 1909 the Government also moved to prosecute the printers, so Krishnavarma printed the journal from Paris until 1914, from where copies were smuggled into India. He then re-started the journal in 1920 in Geneva until 1922.
Secondary works:
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Yajnik, Indulal, Shyamaji Krishnavarma: Life and Times of an Indian Revolutionary, foreword by Sarat Chandra Bose (Bombay: Lakshmi Publications, 1950)
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya was the second of eight children born to Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya and his wife, a Bengali family, in Hyderabad. His siblings include Sarojini Naidu and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya. Virendranath was also known as 'Chatto'.
Virendranath travelled to England in 1902 to study law and compete for the Indian Civil Service (ICS). He failed the ICS exams twice and enrolled in Middle Temple. In 1903, he was living with an English woman in Notting Hill under the names Mr and Mrs Chatterton. The couple parted ways in 1909.
Virendranath was rejected from Shyamaji Krishnavarma's India House scholarships in 1905 but was intimately involved with the India House organization in Highgate. Following the murder of Sir Curzon Wyllie by Madan Lal Dhingra in July 1909, Chattopadhyaya sent a letter to The Times in support of Savarkar's right to freedom of speech in response to the assassination. He was then expelled from Middle Temple. Virendranath was a close friend of V. D. Savarkar in London and visited him frequently in Brixton Gaol in 1910. To avoid a warrant for his arrest, Virendranath went into exile in June 1910 by moving to Paris.
Notes and Queries, 1908-1910 (contributed philological notes)
The Talwar, 1909 (editor)
Secondary works:
Barooah, Nirode K., Chatto: The Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Mukherjee, Meenakshi, 'From the Margins of History: Agnes Smedley and Virendranath Chattopadhyay', Elusive Terrain: Culture and Literary Memory (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008)
Smedley, Agnes, Battle Hymn of China (London: Victor Gollancz, 1944)
Archive source:
Letters to The Times, 28 December 1908, 9 July 1909, 12 July 1909
Indian Agitators Abroad, compiled by the Criminal Intelligence Office, Simla (1911), Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Shyamaji Krishnavarma first came to Britain in 1879 as a Sanskrit scholar and assistant to Professor Monier Williams at Oxford. He graduated from Balliol College in 1883 and was called to the Bar in 1884. In 1881, he attended the Berlin Congress of Orientalists.
Krishnavarma returned to India to work in service to the Indian Princely States and then returned to England in 1897, settling with his wife at Highgate. They first lived at a house he bought at 9 Queenswood Avenue. He endowed an annual lecture in honour of Herbert Spencer in 1904, after attending the funeral service of Herbert Spencer in Golders Green in December 1903. He also created scholarships for Indian students to study in Britain from 1905, on the condition that they would not work for the British Government.
In February 1905, Krishnavarma founded the Indian Home Rule Society. He then established India House in Highgate (at 65 Cromwell Avenue) in the same year (July 1905), as a hostel for Indian students, which became a meeting-place for Indian revolutionaries in London. Krishnavarma fled to Paris in 1907 to avoid arrest and censure by the British Government in relation to his published inflammatory material, such as the journal The Indian Sociologist, and the political activities of India House. He was also disbarred from Inner Temple. After a lapse between 1914 and 1920, Krishnavarma began to publish The Indian Sociologist again from Geneva until 1922. He died in Geneva in 1930.
Published works:
Editor of Indian Sociologist, 1905-14, 1920-2
Introduction to Richard Congreve’s pamphlet,India [Denying England’s right to retain her possessions], first published in 1857; reprinted with Krishnavarma’s introduction (London: A. Bonner, 1907)
